 Okay. All right. So welcome everyone. Thanks for coming out to the council meeting tonight. So the first thing to do is call the meeting to order. So I'm doing that now. Next is to review and approve the agenda. There were a couple. Oh, hello. Okay. We're a little better. Okay. Thank you. All right. So there are a couple of addendums to the agenda as posted online, which are in the consent agenda. So we have an item I and J about street closure and pancakes. Just pretty exciting. So I think there's, I don't think there are any other changes to the agenda. I just wanted to note something. The council at the last meeting had set the continuation of chapter three of the ordinances for tonight. And I know at least one member had asked about that. And when we started going through the notes from the last meeting, we also had some staff that observed some other things. We wanted to take some more time to vet through that before bringing it back. So hopefully it'd be the following meeting. So we didn't forget. Any other changes to the agenda? This one? Okay. I will do my best. I'm going to do, I'm going to do this. Okay. So right. So we're going to consider the agenda approved without objection. So on to general business and appearances. So this is a time for any member of the public to address the council on some matter that is otherwise not on the agenda. And so if you would, if you have anything you would like to say to the council, if you would say your name, where you live and try to keep your comments to two minutes. And I will give you a heads up when you are at two minutes. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Paige Gertin. I'm on the conservation commission. And I wanted to let the council know that we have selected a contractor to do the rain garden at the credit union that we've been working on. It seems like forever. And that is a collaborative team of equilibrium, which is Sarah and Alex Huffmeyer and the Vermont youth conservation core. Sarah and her team member, Elizabeth Courtney will do the design and the YCC and Alex Huffmeyer will do the construction. So we're looking at construction in the middle of August and they are often running. So it's wonderful. I just wanted to let you know, do we need to get approval from you for any for that? No, I think you're all set. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Yes, anything not on the agenda. Not sure if this is the right time to comment or not. If it's not, I'll sit down and wait. But I'm Mary Alice Prophet with Down Home Kitchen. I'm the owner of Down Home. And I just stopped by Jamie Grandfield was nice enough to mention that you're having a meeting tonight. And I know that we've had a lot of really awesome street closures happening on Langdon. If this is about the street closure, we will talk about that very soon. Okay. That's what I was wondering. Sorry about that. Sorry to interrupt you. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Thank you, Bill. All right. Anything otherwise not on our agenda? Steve Whitaker. I want to present you all a gift. What's the point of sweeping the streets to keep the dust from blowing through the farmer's market if you're going to leave the street sweeper behind? So feel free to pass it around. In the plastic bag, it's a lot cleaner than having to pick it up without individually. But that took a lot of work. A few of them were donated by your trash tramps. Their choice of words not mine. We've got a growing number of hazards with the removal of the trees. The sidewalk concrete work being done. There's not sufficient supervision. There's a big four inch gap in front of the Kellogg-Humbert library. Last week there was a two foot deep hole the size of the missing tree. Somebody could have stepped into that broken the kneecap or whatever. Not enough supervision of the repairs. The wreath is still sitting right out here from last Christmas right alongside the city council. So I had asked one of your council members to actually add to the agenda. We need to have a discussion about the housing challenged. This is the nicest phrase I can come up with so far. But I've mentioned this before. It's getting worse. The folks that the need for services right now is the beginning of the fiscal year. And I think that I have asked that you take action tonight to appoint some members to a task force to reach out to Berlin and Barrie and see if the funding stream that comes hundreds of that. I know you're watching your clock. You just want to get rid of me as quick as you can. But I've mentioned this many months ago back in January and it's still not made the agenda. And if you miss the opportunity to reroute that those hundreds of thousands and take some more oversight that will not be a good thing. So you're at about two minutes now Steven. I know and I also wanted I'm going to stop my clock for your sake since I'm talking. I just want you to know that there's a group of people who've been working on homelessness in in Montpelier and would love to connect you with that group. It's bigger than that. We need action by the council to intercept the funding and take oversight. Let's talk about how we can connect with all the resources that are available. But if you if they start to flow July one, you may have missed that opportunity. You're a little over two minutes if you have anything more. Yes. Are your police force is handing out to some of these housing challenged folks with no demonstration, no evidence of a complaint by the parties is handing out no trespass orders that don't cite a complainant or anything. It's really a let's say an abusive process. It's they're being selectively enforced. Some of the homeless are being run off while others are being left there. That's not okay. Here's an example of one signed by an officer. So and you're you're almost at three minutes here, Steven. So let's wrap it up. Why don't you just tell me you don't want to hear it? And these are problems that I brought to you repeatedly and you've not put them on the agenda. I would love to chat with you further about this, especially over email. That's dysfunctional. No result comes from those emails. So I'm doing it putting it on the record for the public to put pressure on you. Thank you. Any further comments? I guess I agree with him about the homelessness. I think it's high time and long overdue that the city do some real addressing of homelessness. And we need a homeless shelter. Fair enough. Thank you. Oh, and would you mind saying your name and where you live for the Vicky Lane in Berlin? Okay, thank you. There you go. Great. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. So moving on to the consent agenda. I know there's a couple of items that we may want to pull. I want to ask if there is anyone here to address the toy run is anyone who would like to talk about that? It's on the consent agenda. We can pull it if you would like to. Okay, great. All right, so we will I would like us to pull item E as well as the street closure on Langdon Street, which is item I any other suggestions? Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Listen to that on it's on it's online. It's on the agenda with one that all the audience. Fair enough. It's yeah, it's on the online version with those two deletions. I move the consent agenda for the discussion. On favor, please say aye. Opposed. Great. So let's talk about the toy run first. Vicky and Steven. And if anyone else has thoughts, great, we should get an update from Sue or Tony first. Oh, sure. We're we're at Sue and Tony. Do you want to provide an update on where we're at? What's on the actual agenda for people coming? Chief Tony Fakis, my player police department. Can you hear now? Can you hear now? Chief Tony Fakis, my player police department. How we resolved it? We adjusted times on both ends. And so the street will be clear for the toy run to come through at one p.m. The police department also be since we'll have the additional staff that day, we're going to assist the farmers market folks on we'll take care of the barricades and cones so they can just pack up and move out. And we should be all set to make sure we've got a clear course to State Street. I just want to thank both both United Motorcycles of Vermont, as well as the farmers market for their their work with us, you know, on this glitch that was pretty much our responsibility that we missed. So want to thank them. I just want to add also that the fire chief will be there on Saturday to help with the breakdown and I'll be there. And the farmers market is bringing in extra volunteers to meet up to meet the timeframe. Okay, any further comments? Yeah, come on up. I think it's really I'm pleased that there was some movement on both sides. But I think this year, maybe especially considering what happened in New Hampshire, that the motorcyclists should be given a lot of leeway on this. And I think looking forward, since it was mentioned that the farmers market had already booked every Saturday for next year, let's change that and fix it for the toy run. They are only asking for one Saturday. It won't kill the farmers market to adjust. Just to clarify, we've not actually booked anything for next year. They said they did. Yeah, that was incorrect. I'm Amy McCrullis. I live at 77 Berlin Street. Until recently, I was the community representative on the farmers market board. And I just want to say that I'm really thrilled, even though I'm not wearing that hat anymore, with how both organizations were able to work together with themselves and each other in the city, I know that in the past, we've had some challenges with that. So I'm really happy, even though I'm not wearing that hat anymore, but it was able to be resolved in a positive way. And I would add that it doesn't sound like a big deal for a market to close early or close for a day. But these are up to 60 people whose livelihoods depend on this market and this community. So thank you, everybody for coming together and consideration of that. Thank you. Any further comments? Is there a motion regarding the toy run? I move that we approve the street closure as requested. Second. For the discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed. Okay. The street closure of Langdon Street for the 3rd of July. So I know there's some, Mary Alice, I know you wanted to comment on that. Now would be the time if you want to. Oh, it's fine. City Council in a while. It's all good. So I'm Mary Alice with Down Home Kitchen and I just wanted to say how exciting it is to see so many street closures happening on Langdon. I feel like we've been getting, I've been getting a lot of emails from Jamie with more and more people requesting to close Langdon Street. And I think it's fantastic and I think it benefits the community. And what I'm seeing out of the windows of Down Home is just a lot of diverse people from kids to older people, people coming in from quite a long way away to enjoy the space. So I'm in full support of this. Just had a concern about the design of the Department of Liquor Control alcohol barriers for street closures. And I wanted to come tonight to just offer up a model that worked really well for us on our first birthday party before we had our park let out. We actually had a street closure to celebrate and have a dinner for Down Home's first birthday party. This was in 2016. And with the in the spirit of bringing business into the neighboring businesses on Langdon, we did not rope off or close off any of the sidewalks on Langdon Street. We kept our alcohol barrier and the roped off area inside the street so that traffic could flow from one side of Langdon down to the other with the exception of Down Home sidewalk. You could walk you know past down home in the corner in turn and you could go you know to the Union River Sports. You could go to the record store. But our barrier was basically set up in a way so that it drew people down the street and many people did not come to our birthday party but they ended up going and buying something. Let's say they were going to Jay Langdon. She wasn't open at the time but go into you know Union River Sports. So I think design is really critical with special events. And what I would like to just kind of request is that city council or whoever is overseeing this can keep in mind that if we can keep our alcohol barriers like some kind of consciousness around the way that they're designed then not only the people coming to attend that event can enjoy the space but people who might want to come and walk down Langdon if be a part of the feeling of the event while not actually going into an event with alcohol and beer. Let's say maybe they have kids with them or maybe they're older folks who don't drink alcohol. They could still come and be a part of the event. So I hope that makes sense and is that does anyone have any questions. I have a really good design that we drew for that event. I'm happy to send it to the city as an example and I think it might help everybody. Yeah, sound good. I'm sure you might have some thoughts you'd like to share. Thank you. My name is Brad and from Langstreet Tavern. I redrew a map that I guess wasn't very clear earlier and I heard we had some problems on the fifth with what happened with Mary Alice and the whole other thing. Our offensive shouldn't go as far down as a little past the parking lot or I'll get river stop so it shouldn't be impede on any business and the only place it is is where our doors everybody come in and out of the restaurant with a beverage if they want to and it's a problem with kids and families all the time. Cool. And my understanding is that the Department of Liquor Control map is not finalized yet. They don't ask for a map. Okay. So one of the... We can talk about that after. That's not what your partners told us. We'll talk about that later. One of the proposals that may work potentially is if we could say that from the corner of the outermost corner of the parklet to where the entryway is if there could be at least 10 feet, if not 15 feet, would that be sufficient? Just want to jump in here and say that my being here tonight is really not just about the parklet or down home. If economic development in downtown Montpelier is going to happen and we're going to do special events and go to the trouble to do many events that don't really make a lot of money. The idea is to get people in the habit of coming downtown and so my point is really around creating some kind of design that you guys feel comfortable with maybe Montpelier alive collaborates with downtown business owners collaborate with so that when you have an event it's actually a draw into business as well as whoever's hosting the event because right now like Juliana with Jay Langdon she often stays open she'll stay up and late for like arts walk and other things and she'll do some business in the evenings with folks that have to work during the day that wouldn't otherwise be able to shop. What we want to do is if we have an event on Langdon where we're closing that off have businesses not just down home kitchen not just the parklet be able to stay open late and capture some business that they wouldn't ordinarily do so I think the idea of having the alcohol there and having an event is a draw but let's make sure that we're not that we're also helping the businesses that are right there on the block as well so I mean what you're saying is great but the idea is to keep the alcohol barriers in the street not blocking the sidewalks if that makes sense obviously with your own business it's different but is that clarifying at all? Yes go ahead I just I think that's what the addendum hand-drawn map is. The Department of Liquor Control requires a map that has to get approved when you're serving alcohol on the street they might have overlooked that when you guys did your arts fest event but that's pretty standard protocol I've always had to submit one and they have to come and walk it with you and approve the barriers of where people are going to be walking with alcohol outside so yeah that map that we have it's hand I think it says street party but and it and I just want to make sure that so I don't think folks here have access to this but it's basically it is in the middle right? Can would you mind just like saying that to the mic so everyone can hear you that's okay that's okay yeah the only place you know both sidewalks are open other than right in front of our the restaurants if you come in and out the restaurant the bathroom or whatever they need to with the beverage they want to and food and everything but both sidewalks are open other than the point where our restaurant is so and that's what the fancy is I really clearly go down as far as down the street as I usually do so for now that's acceptable well and I I mean it would be well to be clear that his staff put a condition on the recommendation for street closure that all there be access to all the businesses and always yeah so including the window okay okay so yes kind of make a motion to approve the request from Langdon Street Tavern for the street design and the street closure second for the discussion do you have something you want to add Steven on June 10th I sent a Steve Whitaker I sent a bill a photo from May the Marmelier or Mayfest whatever it was called Langdon Street closure where a whole section of sidewalk was posted as closed and I thought that that might have been unintended or at least not even approved and I don't know what I don't hear that being discussed I don't hear that being prevented from happening again I was told by the city manager that it wasn't supposed to happen but yet it happened and I sent a photo of it I don't know if it was circulated to the council but I'm hoping we're not overlooking that kind of we have a problem even with the existing in various places in town of congestion between a bike parked and a hostess table and you know we create congestion that's beyond what was intended when permits to use the sidewalk were issued and that needs to be addressed and supervised and I don't want to use the word policed but managed it can't be a free for all for whoever wants to close what's actually planned thank you for bringing it up I would appreciate it if Bill would address whether well we got the picture and it clearly was something that wasn't you know we it didn't happen in the June event and it's not part of the permit for this closure if you know we can't just block off a public sidewalk it's not your property so that was my question if there I'm assuming there's probably a law enforcement presence as well alcohol is being served and so I assume if there were any issues it would be law enforcement who would sort of move cool great question okay there's been a motion and a second I think there was seconded further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed right so the motion passes all right so we are going to move on to an appointment to the ADA advisory committee so there is one applicant for one seat I don't know if Linda Lyles is here but if you are we'd love to meet you okay so one oh hey Tom thank you Jack pursuant to one VSA section 313 a3 I move that we go into executive session session to discuss the appointment of a public officer was there a second okay further discussion all in favor please say aye I opposed all right all right we'll be right back okay is there a motion to come out of the executive session so moved second further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed all right so at this point I would move that we appoint Linda Lyles to the Montpelier ADA advisory for the discussion all in favor please say aye I opposed all right thank you Linda for your time on this committee all right so we are on to the Berlin Street speed limit discussion this is the second public hearing so I'm going to officially open the public hearing we did get so information from our lawyers as to whether or not we could make a speed or establish a speed limit that was lower than than the recommended report but maybe I will let Tom explain that or update us as to where we are thanks Tom McCartle from the public works office first start by saying making a point of clarification we're referring to in the ordinance under article 10 section 300 H is Berlin Street in that section it references Berlin Street is 35 miles an hour from Northfield Street to the town line I want to clarify that in the report states that this study in this recommendation refers to Berlin Street from Granite Street or the River Street intersection to the town lines it does not refer to that so I want to make sure that distinction is clear so we did provide a follow-up memorandum response to questions and concerns that were raised at the last hearing about setting speed limits council discretion as the mayor referenced attorney opinion pedestrian bicycle volumes what that meant in our report advanced signage and physical alterations as well as the questions asked about sidewalks I won't go into the detail of that there's any questions from council about that follow-up information or any additional questions in general I would I would just weigh in I have actually litigated this issue myself a few years ago and did not prevail in terms of that was what was adopted in essence by the governing body and there were a few other things certified copies and things like that but it is indeed true if someone does challenge it it has to be enacted in compliance with both state law as well as like the manual and uniform traffic control devices and all of those things so it is definitely something that that does get litigated when it comes up so other questions or comments from the council I'm going to go down I just would like to reassure the residents and everyone else that even if we legally have to post at 30 there are still many steps we can do to reduce the speed with traffic coming and we also can take a very positive step and look at the whole city city-wide and try to make it slow down and join Montpelier kind of campaign so I think this is an opportunity don't feel discouraged Ashley so I I've had a little bit more time in my mornings recently and so I've been thinking a lot about this I've received a huge number of emails which is great and I love that people are so active and so engaged in our district and so I've been doing a lot of thinking about this and as I was coming up the hill this morning there is a crosswalk sort of at the crest of that sort of first hill and doing 35 miles an hour I've been to crashes where there are bodies in the streets it's the most horrifying thing I have ever seen and so I felt really strongly sort of after reflecting on this and listening to everyone's thoughtful commentary that I would actually support going to 25 miles per hour for the first part of the hill and then at the second sign where it says again 35 miles per hour changing that to a 30 mile per hour zone that then transitions into the 35 it would be at the top of that hill before the water plan I think is where it changes to 40 that rain right but it would be 35 through Montpelier and then it would go to 40 in Berlin so the perhaps chief fakers knows what the second sign is you're referring to but the first crosswalk is just before you reach Cedar Hill Lane to shy of that a couple of house lots higher to that it is considered a midblock crosswalk the second location I'm not clear on where the second speed limit is you referenced a speed limit sign yeah was there another is Wilson Street the landmark I believe so yeah it was the second 35 mile per hour speed limit sign so it was after that crosswalk after the second one correct so that the second crosswalk is at Wilson Street yes okay so what I would the way I picture this happening at least for now is that they're clarifying questions the council want to ask we can do that now and then I'd love to hear from the public and then we might make a back to some further council discussion if that's alright but for now clarifying questions yes did we open the public hearing we did Glenn I don't know if Tony or Tom is ready to respond to this but I'm curious because Ashley suggestion of a split speed limit for that stretch of Berlin Street is the first I've considered that idea do you have any opinions about having two different speed limits or even three twenty five thirty and thirty five on that stretch of Berlin Street in Montpelier it's it's only I have not thought of either but I think it could be very problematic as far as people aren't seeing specific changes in landscape traffic patterns or anything else on a straight road no major roads are intersecting or businesses off of that so we're like a school zone for example where you can have a specific you know identifying warning warning zone if you will so that would be a challenge I think for this general motorist and one of the things that always concerns us when enforcement standpoint we have to be on solid ground because as we saw many many years ago it took a herculean effort on main street hill to really change driver behavior a lot of education a lot of a lot of enforcement again we just have to be on solid ground because if we're not able to do that to this matter what would you know even that 30 miles an hour it's going to be a significant effort on our part to make sure we're educating and changing driver behavior and that's our ultimate goal so that's my one concern that we just have to make sure that it's going to be valid so if a ticket is issued it will it has to hold up in court otherwise we will not be issuing those tickets because it puts us in an allowable situation so just add to that is the results of the study indicate the entire study area be 30 miles an hour but going beyond that to to assist in achieving voluntary compliance which I think is really what our ultimate objective is that most people are alive biting is is how we actually accomplished that with signage it would drop going uphill from 35 to the 25 zone presumably at the intersection so there's an advanced sign needed there because it's 10 miles or greater change in speed limits so that's a speed reduction sign I think that's a difficult message to convey on an already sign heavy area and congested street for the going for eastbound uphill in the opposite direction I think it's a little more readily achievable to give proper notice that the speed limit is is reducing but again the the study indicates that the the corridor should be 30 miles an hour and I think the more confusion we introduce lack of clarity lack of certainty and predictability I think it's less likely you're going to have voluntary compliance with their limits their questions or comments I think where I'm at is I'm comfortable passing something that there's not clarity whether we can force it or not but I think moving to 30 miles an hour is a step in the right direction like Donald might be very eager to look at a more comprehensive approach city-wide maybe more than 25 miles an hour but at this point I'm not sure we're ready for prime time but I think we do our due diligence and actually look into this get all the information we need to make a intelligent decision Glenn yeah just following up I'll say for myself I agree I think it's a good idea for now to lower it to 30 and to work on traffic calming measures on Berlin Street I'd be curious to hear a little bit more about just just since we're talking about it now what specific traffic calming measures might work there off the top of your head I walked up there this morning to be fresh tonight and it does seem like a wide straight street that could potentially be narrower without keeping anyone from driving on it and that might slow people down somewhat I also wonder about shifting the crosswalks a little bit from from where they are it felt to me a little bit like sometimes the crest of the hill blocked some sight lines from the point where you're trying to cross I don't know if that's everyone's experience about but in any case any any ideas about specific ideas about what traffic calming measures could work on Berlin Street the traffic calming philosophy and approach includes a number of different strategies that are designed specifically custom fit to the street so there are a lot of lot of tools in the toolbox so to speak the committee that Donna sits on is looking at that for a number of streets I'm sure they'll be looking at this but there I reference to the report I think is a very good example on a road the way of like this is Danville route to passing through Danville which has a gateway treatment really makes it very clear that you're entering a town a village setting it has a center island and some ornate posts inside some lighting welcome signs and then as you travel through there is some different pavement textures and neck downs so and again some more center median islands so that's that's the approach on the state highway facility it's appropriate for that setting there's no speed bumps or tables and that's not really necessary to accomplish an effective speed limit that is a twenty four seven type of impact on on driver behavior it doesn't doesn't require aggressive police enforcement it just it's there it really extends the message and again you see eighty five percent of the drivers are better accomplishing that so there's a lot of things that could be looked at for that it doesn't have to be that aggressive to really achieve what you're trying to target and you you set a target speed limit when you're doing that you trying to accomplish and this is the last thing I'm really happy to see so many people out and talking about this and and at the first public hearing as well I'm really pleased to see that level of engagement and I hope it continues and in that spirit I got many emails as Ashley did and also a phone message from George Johnson who I think is not here tonight resident of Berlin Street who wanted me to pass on to the council his strong opinion that we should lower the speed limit to twenty five and I wanted to lay that out before council should shut up thank you they're clarifying questions from council Lord so I am also kind of in a similar place that sounds like you know I'm very interested to hear what people have to say and appreciate the engagement got a lot of messages to which is great looking at the kind of legal opinions of how you would need to deviate from the traffic study it looks like it references things like local knowledge of pedestrian and bike traffic road conditions sight lines children in the area and so on and I guess I'm just curious you know what's not included in the traffic study like is there a case that could be made you think based on the information we've gathered from the public that we could be legally defensible to go below or do you feel like that was all pretty well captured in what you've done so it'd be hard to stand on two legs in court to defend the 25 even though people might understandably want a lower speed limit I've got young children I'm very sympathetic to wanting you know slow traffic but just curious on that point that's a excellent question the the reason why attorney McLean mentioned that is all of those things that are included in that report it's whether or not you the city council through your testimony and your own judgment and opinion feel that there was not enough emphasis given to any one or more factor that should be expanded upon and be given greater weight that he recommends that you if you do that that you make it very clear that you disagree or wish to expand on that point and that it's properly documented so if there is a challenge you cite the report and then you cite why you defiate from it for whatever reason I would just also I was just doing a little bit of research and there is a significant difference in the so the other morning I saw a young family with an infant in a baby carriage crossing that first not the one at the bottom of the hill but the second one if you're headed up and you know the way that the Sun was I saw her because I was solely focused on that but there's a significant difference between striking a pedestrian at 25 miles per hour and a pedestrian at 30 miles per hour I mean they're both gonna be dangerous no matter what but I just you know I live on East State and I think the speed limit is 35 and then it goes down or 30 on college and then 30 coming down but you're going down 25 25 but we'll fly through there at like 30 or 35 miles an hour like on the reg and as somebody who like uses that crosswalk right there that's you know at the at the bottom of a bit of a hill and then sort of heads down the next one it's really scary when you're trying to cross the street and I appreciate that you know it's it's not a common occurrence that pedestrians get struck but it does happen and speed limits and traffic calming I think I think it has to be a combination of both but I would just I would really like us to explore the the gradual increase up to Berlin any other clarifying questions yeah well I don't think setting the speed will change the habits and especially if there's multi-speed in one strip and the argument if I got a ticket some other community I probably fight it and say no I was this inches back where the other speed was I was confused by the signs so I feel at this time what we can do toms put it through all the analysis that we're allowed and he's very dependable expert he's come to 30 miles an hour I feel we should go there and we should then really work on all the traffic calming elements community education and get the rest of the community to support just being slower we can also put flashing beacons on the crosswalks so there's lots of things we can do and I would rather do that so I would make a motion that we you don't want to motion okay I'm sorry I also definitely want to hear from the public yes yes yes but hang on are there any other clarifying questions from the council okay so now is the opportunity if you have comments about this we'd love to hear from you and again try to keep your comments to two minutes or so all right go ahead the jumping to conclusions before you've heard the public comment and hearing is is troubling it's not the first time it's happened the one of your options I think is to table this to not take action on it and to develop the clear rationale it says very in the memo that Tom provided that as comprehensively on the record clearly and comprehensively impossible the reasons that it's deviating from the recommended speed including all the local influencing factors such as knowledge of pedestrian bike traffic road conditions strollers elderly and berms of population research etc there it will be more confusing to drag this into a two-step 30 now 25 later with infinite delay possible construction it would be much more considerate of the residents and consistent to the not familiar public to set it down to 25 as soon as you can develop these rational I think that would take some time with the lawyer and with the report that Tom already prepared it with the testimony that you're about to hear and her last meeting but you can't set forth a clear rationale as detailed as necessary to defend a 25 speed limit and set it but don't waiver on this don't you know make these residents wait you know another year of fighting this you know mercurial process to get a safe speed limit for a residential neighborhood it was never intended as a shortcut fast shortcut to the hospital I just have a couple of things I would like to request that this include the entirety of Berlin Street I know it starts at Granite Street but the other part of Berlin Street is just as deserving and is a lot more pedestrian than we are and I know in the days when I was able to walk downtown I was scared to death to walk on that section of Berlin Street I would take Stonecutters way because it was safer because people especially at night drive so fast and there's not at least at that time the sidewalks were almost level with the road so it was scary but I would like to request that the entirety of Berlin Street be considered and and I really would like 25 and I know when Barry changed the speed limit on 302 from 40 to 25 in that section and I think now after however many years it is people are educated to that now I think a few substantial tickets to care of that issue and if they get behind me they'll understand thank you good how are you I'm not gonna repeat what I said last night but yeah I agree shouldn't neighborhood should be split gradual half 25 and 30 and 35 the same amount of families that are downhill and kids children I wish the postal workers that do that area we're here they wanted to come then they have that concern they all say you should be 25 crossing the street is a problem so factors and the research and all the data collected I think the most important factor is residents and the voices of the people the citizens of this town and also comparables so when you're going on states northfield street again mainstream now when you're going on state street towards the creamy stand there's a neighborhood there and it's 25 miles growl that the council at one point voted for or anyway somehow that neighborhood got changed 25 once you get to those few homes there on state street by the every creamy so also so that's an important part of any study is having comparables from not only other streets but neighborhoods cities towns other states when you're on Worcester going towards Elmore into Morrisville and this we don't have the capital as soon as you're getting to more so down this hill welcome to Morrisville first sign second sign reduce speed ahead third sign 25 miles power up ahead fourth sign 25 miles power with a meter that says your speed so that is a way also enforcement will break habits after a while people know people will come to know and be posted with signs and lights also conducted my own study and my own time probably the busiest guy very bad with a radar gun which shows conclusive report on the speed on a one-week study of a two-year period yes 85 percent our speed so I like to present this to the council it's all dated times uphill downhill a.m. p.m. and on the dates you'll find the average speeds are 40 summer 50 and this is based on the first 20 vehicles so I go up to the radar run the velocity speed but I spend the money to purchase and you can pass around present it to evidence it's just another factor that has to be considered into legal to however this could get resolved to 25 just so you know you're over to yeah yeah all these agendas and all these issues are all important that this is something that we have to live with every day 365 days so it's an urgent matter and I think it you know it has to be addressed right away thank you my name is Roberta Garland and I live at 10 Wilson Street right by the second crosswalk I was very happy to hear that is a proposal to lower the speed limit to 25 miles an hour I think if it goes to 30 people are still going to go fast my daughter well the second those crosswalks are located that way and the so the bus stop stops the school bus stops stops right on the other side right on the other side of the road so kids cross the street in the crosswalks and they get in the school bus unfortunately cars don't stop for those kids crossing the street my daughter spent two years crossing that street and sometimes I would go out there and stand and wave my arms in front of the cars to tell them they had to stop they didn't stop I called the police I said can you put a cruiser up there they said yeah we can do it you know some of the time they said I could take the right down the license plates and give them the license plates so I did that some of the time but you can't do that every day it was really disturbing it was really scary I think that going up that hill people people gain some speed you know they start up and then they gain some speed and at that second crosswalks they're not going to stop because they've gotten their speed so I think going down to 30 is still going to want that speed okay I also bike a lot on that hill and it's really nerve-wracking to bike with cars going up and down I would I really like that idea of narrowing Berlin Street and making a real good bike path on the side so Montpelier expands their bicycle friendly I like that thank you thank you welcome thank you just in time for a 305 Berlin Street so I mean I got to be honest living on Berlin Street doesn't make me want to live in Montpelier it gets really unsafe I mean I just like I am worried when snow blowing I don't know what I'm going to do when the kids have to go to school because we're on the uphill side so we're going to have to cross the street probably every morning he goes to school on Sherwood we can get to Sherwood to his school but we have to like walk on people's lawns and stuff it's a really scary place and I think that a 25 mile an hour speed should be the whole street I kind of feel like where we are is almost like second class up there past where the sidewalk ends a little bit and it's kind of sad I don't know I mean that that's how I feel sorry back there yelling a lot of time to just how it kind of feels like it just feels very unsafe and I'm worried about kids and how they're going to get to across the street to the school bus and it'd be nice if we had a little bit more side walk not necessarily sidewalk but some shoulder and I really really strongly disagree that we can do voluntary like voluntary training there's too much commuter traffic on that street and people are just going to continue to go fast if it's not really enforced similar to how it is coming in to say Morris will have somebody mentioned when you come into Morrisville you know it's 25 when you're coming into town so thank you guys thank you thank you my name is Nate Fredericks and I live from Justin who just spoke living at the top of the hill is a dangerous place to live people are coming off of the highway called pink turnpike going 50 miles an hour sometimes right into Montpelier even though the speed limit is 35 there's also a curve there right at Sherwood and people coming from the other direction into Berlin are starting to speed up as the density of homes and I'm not sure why exactly but I've noticed that I've lived there in this street area now for over 10 years and maybe it's just me it does seem like people there's more traffic I know that for sure and pretty sure people are going faster than they used to be I have no idea why but so two points or three points in addition I'd like to make what are the speed limit what is the speed limit on route 12 coming in on Elma Street 25 and that's a that's a state highway you say it's 30 but when you say coming in it's 40 initially it's 40 but it goes down to 25 it hits yes coming street it goes from a 30 to a 40 and then it drops down to 25 and what is the speed limit on where the middle school is going up what street is that again main street thank you 25 25 and the speed limit is also a 25 headed out a month earlier towards middle sex at least for a portion where there's housing up until the cemetery correct correct okay I just wanted to make that all clear to everyone else I just looked at states really it's 201 state is that is a change there yeah so my point is 25 seems perfectly reasonable people again are going very fast at the top of that hill near Sherwood there is a lot of young families including mine Justin's who just spoke several other neighbors it's excessive it's dangerous there's no sidewalk and I just wanted to bear with me one second yeah again people are flying off of thank you my name is cadence Richardson we live on the second crest of Berlin Street on the side that doesn't have a sidewalk and just as residents who like to go and walk down the sidewalk to get to downtown on the street to get to the sidewalk period we are both the support of 25 miles per hour just because like people have said people are definitely abusing the speed limit and even if it was 25 people are going to go faster than that anyway so yeah I would just like to support having 25 miles an hour be the speed limit for the entire stretch because people really do speed up quickly and you know there's people have lines with a lot of steep banks they're mowing their lawns in the spring and summertime come winter people are snow blowing shoveling the road gets you know really slick and cars are going doing weird things I meant to thank police too I have noticed the police more on the street lately they did have sort of a spinometer thing on the street for a while which I thought was helpful so thank you and could you stay your name for the record sorry my name is Ken Richardson thanks Julie Giffin and I live at 222 Berlin Street which is just above Wilson Street which is where Ashley was suggesting that the speed limit increase and I lived on Berlin Street where me and my family lived on Berlin Street for 52 years now so we had the luxury of living on there when it was when it was narrow before it was widened and I don't know what the speed limit was then don't I don't remember but I imagine it was probably 25 miles an hour I don't know and I haven't read your report I apologize for that so I don't have all the facts that you put into this but I can say that living on Berlin Street in winter time it's a little bit of a nightmare if you if you are able to pull out of your driveway going frontwards you're lucky chances are good you can't you have to you have to drive in straight on because there's so much traffic on the street there's no way you could hold the traffic to back in the snow banks get so high that you can't really see out if you have any ice on your drive on my driveway happens to be on a hill so if you have to you know you need a little extra time because you're going to spin your wheels before you get on to the road you're probably not going to make it because the cars are going down the road I've seen the bus stops I don't understand actually how the bus stops work it used to be that they would just be a good old day you guys but it used to be that it was right next to our house and all the all the kids from you know from Wilson Street to Phelps Street would would come and that would be the bus stop and now it seems like every place that there's a kid that the bus will stop and that slows traffic down as well with people trying to like commute to work and I just feel like 25 miles an hour is reasonable for the dense for the residential density of that of that area the safety I've had at least two cars on my front lawn that have had acts as some sort of accident it's I never let my kids play in the front yard and I thought I was being over protective until until they took out a tree so I just feel like 25 miles an hour is a reasonable thing the road noise would be much less I think that flashing beacon is not a great idea actually because it did just be flashing in people's room houses you know night you know whenever they go off people would be like you know flashes coming in I don't like that idea like it downtown I also find that even if even if even if even if one car stops at a crosswalk and I don't think people really think of those crosswalks on Rowan Street as being anything to pay attention to the car behind it may not and I feel like there's probably plenty of close calls as far as rear-ending goes if not pedestrian thank you I'd also like to remind the council that we have a tremendous amount of commercial traffic on that street now 25 years ago when I moved it there there wasn't that much commercial traffic and the commercial traffic doesn't always obey the speed limit either even the city trucks don't always obey the speed limit or the police cars when they're when they don't have their lights on I live on the corner of Phelps and so when I'm trying to get into my driveway on the downhill side I got to really check that mirror because if I put my blinkers on people think I'm going to go to Phelps and they just you know they go around me regardless whether there's another car coming and so it's difficult to get into the driveway but I have to really check in the mirror for somebody coming down so fast that they're going to rear-end me I was rear-ended once and coming up the hill is the same thing they're going to you know they're gaining their speed to go up that hill and they don't check the directional signal lights on the thing but we do have a tremendous amount more traffic than than we used to have as far as the school buses we're kind of lucky when I was a kid school buses stop at every single residence you did not leave your kid leave a kid on the other side of the street or some else other residents thank you hi I'm Deborah Lisman and I live on upper Pleasantview Street which is parallel to Berlin and I have walked downtown before and back and it is really scary to cross at the crosswalk so and I totally want the kids to be safe and I have one little concern about the speed limit in the opposite side of things which is I drive a Prius which is a little car and I have studded snow tires and in the winter I actually have a hard time getting up the hill and that's the least steep hill to get to my home and that's at 30 or 35 miles an hour if it's lower I'm not sure if I can get up the hill so I'm kind of like I don't know what to do I can get another car I can get a bigger car or something but I'd like to not do that but I also want the kids to be safe and adults too because it is even as an adult it is scary so I get it like if you're a pedestrian thank you hello I'm Laura Smith Riva I live at 286 Berlin Street the white farmhouse at the top of the hill with where the sidewalk ends where the sheep are and I stand with my neighbors about dropping the speed limit to 25 I did I did write to my representative and I think Tom was included on that memo the flashing speed limit that says your speed is this was placed after the last public hearing was placed on my property on the street sign on my property so I was able to kind of watch it and I was kind of keeping an eye on it every day and it did seem like at least during the times I saw it that it had the effect of of people going slower in fact less than 35 so that was pleasing to me I did notice that the traffic coming up Berlin Street and heading towards Berlin was going considerably faster probably because there was no calming mechanism there at at that spot and so you know I read the report and I understand the study and I also understand that we have to you know we have to do it in such a way that if there was a speeding if a speeding ticket was issued that it can be enforced and I have never seen enforcement on the street so I have no idea how much of that happens so I'm not sure what the right answer is but I stand I do stand with my neighbors on the 25 I really think that if every other approach into the city or most of them drops to 25 at a residential area I don't understand why the city council would not be able to use its authority to recognize that and and do what needs to be done to make sure that God forbid we aren't standing here in a year from now wondering why we didn't do it after somebody has been hit I had my I've got my ATV for sale right now it's parked on the street a guy stopped today I was talking to him about it and then another guy stopped and pulled off to the curb right there by my house and it was my dogs went running over and it was really terrifying because traffic came you know wailing up behind him and then there's other traffic oncoming and it isn't there is no parking there on the street I don't think but you know people want to be able to have yard sales they want to be able to like walk outside their house they want to be able to have you know an opportunity to be neighborly and it's really hard to do with that traffic I also witnessed my neighbors across the road I don't know if they're here but they have landscapers who come and do their yard and they have two big trucks with trailers and they parked them on Berlin Street with the orange cones and it was almost like three accidents as I just stood there watching it because it's right on the hill and people are the commuter traffic is is doesn't give a damn about anybody who's on that street they just want to get through quickly to downtown Montpelier to their jobs or whatever and and I really think it's the commuter traffic that is the problem the people who live in that area are not the one speeding for the most part I always have to watch my speed but you know it's that commuter traffic and they don't care that there's something happening on the street for which they maybe should slow down there was people laying on their horns because these vehicles were there with their landscaping equipment and and they were going to have to slow down to let somebody come pass so that they could squeeze through and I could keep going but I will stop because the red stop sign thank you thank you thank you I am Matt Dolezal I live on Berlin Street I just wanted to bring up the issue that perhaps in 1991 this might have been a good idea to expand the road and perhaps increase the speed limit a little bit but in this day and age we have people with much more distracted driving and particularly when it's a residential area like this the smallest distraction obviously could resolve a terrible accident I think that if people are forced to drive at 25 and they do drive to start distractively then at least that'll be a lower impact if there is an accident that's all I really have to say thank you good evening my name is Perry Startozy I live at 273 Berlin Street which is up towards the top of the hill across from the white farmhouse with the sheep I'll start off by saying that was probably my lawn equipment that was walking out here so I have to come clean first but I'm here as a strong advocate for a 25-mile Braver Street to run the entire length of that street for a couple of different reasons share a very quick story based on the two minute rule here I'm new to that street I live close to that area off on Pleasant Beach Street for many years before moving on to Berlin Street that's a very fast moving traffic on that street and people are conditioned coming off the paint your bike like a gentleman was saying they want to drive faster on a freeway right you're driving 65 there they get off they're slowly decrementing in speed but their mindset is not that of a person ready to drive at city speeds at that point at least at the top of the hill so we moved in there roughly four months ago which meant we had a big rental truck being a thrifty person I rented it my wife in the back was the person with the cone stopping traffic and it was a nightmare the speed of the cars coming around that that junction maybe posted 35 but bear in mind that's the absolute minimum somebody will drive to not get it right so we've got heavy traffic industrialized traffic I'd say in some cases there's a UPS right with all the e-commerce now the UPS and FedEx trucks rule that route so I would just say that you know places like where I live up a higher up on the hill there's added you know added speeds there's added traffic and less space actually for us with no sidewalks my mailbox 36 inches from that white line okay so I am okay I'm less than 36 inches for now which means I'm taking up that space so if you do that and you put your arm out that's where the UPS truck driving 40 miles per hour to check my man so please consider it once again I'm an advocate for a 25 mile per hour speed limit thank you thank you I'm Mary Carol Dobbins I live at 300 Berlin Street near Perry and I just want to strongly support a change to 25 miles per hour you know people will go a little more than that but we need to bring them in some I have some articles here based on a surprising way slower driving makes better cities and so it's recent it's it's appropriate so I'd like to share that with the council a couple of those and an enormous change from 30 to 25 so and I would like to add that I believe that the report you're basing your just your current consideration on was based on how many pedestrians were were noted well we don't have pedestrians because it's too scary to walk on the street so I feel like the initial report is flawed because we don't walk on it because it's not safe so I promise you many of us would I would and I'm many of my neighbors would and I live at the top of the hill the people fly down that street and there's limited sighted sighted view of Hebert and Sherwood coming around the corner people coming up quickly it's just it's it's untenable to keep it that way to go down that fast so please consider 25 thank you I am no second my wife and I live at 200 Berlin Street and we're right near the cross and only live here for years but I've seen more children the young children moving in and you see more than all coming out the crosswalk is not painted you wouldn't even see us there they have the sign it was down for four or five days so I knocked it over it just laid there so I strongly in the favor 25 I do like the idea that Donnie came up with let's make it a welcome to Montpelier and then the next things the next thing where the speed side is now flashing it really does I've noticed the difference since you after the last meeting of the sidewalk there I've seen a noted difference in the speed the cars coming out because you coming down real steeply before you get to the crest of the hill past the time and people are speeding up and that was just a reminder to do it you right most people are going to watch the speed limit but you lose sight of and the other thing factors actually was saying there's a big difference between 35 30 25 and you've mentioned something hitting it another thing is reaction time there's a big difference in the reaction time of any driver of 10 5 10 miles that's another factor should be taken to thank you thank you before we have repeats if there's anybody else who hasn't spoken yet that would like to Gene Richardson 200 Berlin Street I just want you to know that I live in fear every time I turn into my driveway whether it's coming up the hill or going down the hill I've seen so many rear-end accidents on that hill and the other just know is it just a minimum of five UPS trucks a night that buzz up that hill and I can tell you that because my dog barks at every one of them they should be a different route for them the other thing is we have some eyes that apparently their GPS tells them this is the shortest route to some place and they are prohibitive from theoretically from going up or better method of enforcing that thank you okay good thanks for pointing that out the GPS route does route people up Berlin Street and not on 302 so thank you that's a good point and I just wanted to if you're going to have a speed limit radar sign really ideally the best place to put that my opinion is where people are going the fastest and that's just before Sherwood Drive if you're headed into Montpelier again that's also on a blind curve where there's a major intersection so thank you that's all appreciate it Laura Berlin Street just to follow up on the comments somebody made about the semis I did witness a semi come up Berlin Street I contacted the city I contacted the police and I contacted I believe it was the I think it was public works this was last winner and each party directed me to somebody else and I don't know that I and I contacted FedEx because it was a big FedEx 18 wheeler and I wrote to them I never heard from anybody I never heard that that was shouldn't be happening I never heard that there was any follow-up I never heard that there was any enforcement and I was specifically told by the people I spoke to at the city and at the police which I think I wrote to them through Facebook that there was nothing that they they could do and and so I'm just putting that out there if it's posted no that the gross weight is a certain amount and the trucks are prohibited and trucks are going up there what are we to do if we call it in and we're and there's no mechanism for enforcement or even reassurance for the people who live who are living in that area thank you I'm still waiting for some of the damage to be fixed from the from the truck trailers and all you have to do when you go up Berlin Street is look at that big yellow post that they put after the fifth time that the what they call fire thing was uprooted and look at the scratches on that and you'll see how many times it's happened and my house shakes when it happens thank you my husband and I live at 276 Berlin Street top of the hill we have a curve on both sides we have to cross the street where the first rural delivery I've almost been hit twice my husband's almost and once my husband's almost been hit twice we have had people end up on our front lawn lady next door had two accidents over the sidewalk on her lawn and diagonally across from us somebody almost hit a tree and ended up on the lawn fair amount thank you just have a question so based on accidents there was some am I right there was some accident reports on the data but not how about how many animal killings in that report and in what time frame and and how many citations were issued in that same time frame of the study there's no report on that like how many days out of the year was their enforcement and how many citations were issued I mean that's another important factor in any type of study any further comments jack thank you I'm afraid I have a kind of a long thing to say but I'll make I have several points to make the first thing I want to say though is that two of the things that I heard the residents say I think are very important things that we need to address if people are passing the school buses when school buses are stopped that has to be enforced very severely that is completely unacceptable we see videos on YouTube of people driving past school buses and if we were to see an accident where a child is hit by a by a car like that nobody in the city wants to see that so I think we really that really needs to be enforced similarly I agree with people who say that we should have sidewalks the full length of Berlin Street should go up to the top and I agree I've walked I've had to walk up past where the sidewalk ends and it's it's concerning having said that though it's I'm glad to hear so many people from the neighborhood here to speak their concerns however it's important that this is a main road it's not simply a neighborhood road and it's a road that supports that serves the entire community not just the people who live right on that street I actually lived on Berlin Street for 12 or 13 years so I know what conditions are like there in order to we have the report from the Department of Public Works and Berlin Street is not considered a high accident area it's rough considered roughly half the accident rate of comparable streets I think we have a very well done traffic study I do not think we have evidence that would justify varying from the traffic study to support speed limit lower than 30 today on my lunch hour I decided to take take a drive up Berlin Street trying to drive 25 all the way up and all the way down and it is really not easy to drive 25 it's it's very hard to keep keep it below 25 the natural the design of the road everything about the road signals to the normal driver that the range of 30 to 35 is a reasonable speed for that street up or down coming down to go 30 25 you'd have to ride your brakes pretty much the whole way down so I support the proposal to to go to 30 from from Granite Street intersection up to the town city limits are we at motion time I mean maybe we could but I think I'm suspecting that I have a question for staff just as a note on the evidence that I provided of 20 cars every day that that's proof of speed limit and that's up on the top of the hill where these folks were sharing their concerns ride the brakes right the brakes all right okay Donna I wanted to ask both Tom and Tony if we did go ahead and make Berlin Street 25 how would that be implemented what would be the impact and how would you suggest we try to do that even whether whatever the speeding tickets and legalities if we just did that and then move towards more traffic calming elements but you know that's going to have to be in road construction there's cost to most traffic calming so that would take a longer time I'm just saying if we did the 25 posting all the way up and we as you know put out this marketing but in-house what does that amount to for both of you I go first like I said earlier if if we know that it is posted illegally that does not have the backing for to be a lawful legitimate stop if we make one questionable stop and somebody articulates that and there's a very recent cases happening in Vermont makes an allegation against the police you knew this was not a lawful stop and you know it'd be very problematic so couple things I just want to add though in terms of there's always multiple options when you're trying to deal with traffic versus foremost ideally the end goal is to have safe neighborhoods safe streets and and really have good driver responsible driver behavior on the enforcement side we we can add the problem is that you know how we what we have for resources in terms of you know the personnel and what times it's always going to be a roll the dice because I'm also getting pressure not not here tonight but from other communities other streets that feel their marginalized in Montclair because they're not maybe in the downtown area or other locations so we're always trying to balance that so we need to be clear-eyed in terms of what our resources are we've had internal discussions about having even some kind of maybe street highway road enforcement team and we kind of dedicating officers on that but is that going to be sustainable and you know can it get us to a point of better behavior but if we target it all on Berlin Street then what other you know is then we're going to have challenges on other parts of the city if we did it all I mean right okay and one thing I just want to just add there was some confusion at the last meeting about the seat the the temporary radar science that we put up like some sometimes yeah they said oh they're not working well we intentionally occasionally when we set them up we set up not to display we're also trying to get raw data we are trying to track which but does not have the reminder in their face that they're going 37 they slow down to 35 but it's to get so so just want everybody understand that so sometimes you see that it'll just be a blank screen they are collecting data yeah don't see it yeah so yeah well so so and so and but it's always it's always good to hear to you know it's just as where we can put those signs and we can also use those signs as a traffic calming tool this there certainly help this so anyway I just wanted to throw that out there because from the police perspective we just want to make sure what we're doing is enforceable and then we will put you know and we will put extra effort and whenever as we do it we've demonstrated it you know historically whenever there's a significant change especially even just something as simple as fresh pavement from from a pothole filled road it's going to require a lot more on our effort to calm calm drivers back down and right whether we're writing tickets for or stopping cars can I clarify something sorry Tom if you had something to say go ahead I was just going to follow up on Donna's but I can wait so the the speed radar signs are actually located at existing speed limit signs so it's where the sign is because the actual speed limit must be displayed with the radar feedback sign so that's so that's why they select those locations they attach right to the post and secondly the data that's collected I'll add to what Chief Fakus said is it also allows police department to do more targeted enforcement so if there are some high rollers that come through at a certain time of day they can see that because it tracks speed and time of day so it's very helpful data on that side so I think on the on the from overall that the resident perspectives who live their day day out witness see how that traffic and speed affects their daily lives I think that's that's very important and that's one of the reasons why the conclusions in the study is to it is the reason that all of those factors considered collectively are provide the justification to lower into the 30 miles an hour I'll read to you or call to your attention the speed study that I provided a link prepared by V trans latest update is 2016 just cautioning about speed limit setting speed limits and on the enforcement side I that's not my world but the enforcement officers I'll read from that enforcement officers need the backing of a traffic ordinance based on engineering and traffic study never established speed limits artificially low to slow or rational drivers it doesn't work if speed limits are set to low for particular rotor street even responsible drivers we usually exceed the limit enforcement then becomes unnecessarily time-consuming and a drain on resources so that's that is I think a very compelling point of view I've heard that for all my years involved in this over 30 and it's it's something that hasn't changed but it can be difficult to overcome the emotional side of it from people who actually live there and experience it especially with young children so I get it I understand the sidewalk side of it I believe it does need sidewalks on both sides I hope we can do that but those changes do take time and a great deal of money and you have something to add thank you I apologize I'm not fully aware of your process okay my understanding heaven having listened tonight is that you have a traffic study that recommends 30 miles per hour and you have a lot of citizens that are recommending 25 and then I then I started this touch a little bit when you were talking about the budget the cost to implement and the cost to please that as if in my opinion there wouldn't be a delta between you're going to have to implement a 30 mile per hour speed limit if you follow the study you know but what what differentiates 25 to 30 I think 25 more impactful to a driver what more product has to happen outside of printing 2s or 3s you know on that side right there right that's an honest question between the two if you can differentiate you know what extra work what extra funding would have to be improved what extra impacts or our board by whichever office between the 25 30 mile per hour my comment about the traffic coming if you actually want to change the nature of the street make it smaller add better protections for pedestrians bike lanes that takes infrastructure money so that's what I meant by cost right and so we'd have to put those into our capital budget I'm just saying that would be delayed so wanting to do something before then as soon as possible right but to have it backed up so that people's nature will slow them down because the streets appearance has been changed okay good just one last comment I've spent before in my life I've worn the corrective a ticket or two and it was not a calming experience for me in fact it was informative and it was teaching so as opposed to signs you know welcoming people incentivizing to slow down in that stringy fast area it would be good to see some policing against the established people and it's already and I love the radar signs something about psychologically seeing the red lights flash like that stop so keep up stuff like that okay thank you yeah go ahead and then I then I have a comment so yeah that's what Mary Dobbins again Berlin Street just to say on the other cost factor again I did nice read somewhere that Montpelier has money for signage or something I'm not sure but I know to help the calming effect and wouldn't cost that much more to say welcome to Montpelier at the top of the hill and say you are entering a residential neighborhood and let people know that will calm down some people we have visitors to our state capital that come in off I-89 up there so maybe it's not a resident so we're all these commuters all the time but that's still a significant significant amount of people and I'll take anybody who stops is not hit okay even if it's five percent I mean that's a that's worthwhile right there anybody who can be slowed it's worth doing this thank you so anyway all right it's not that much additional cost for that amount okay I have a question and then quick enforcement create revenue there is there is revenue yes percentage that would come back to the city whenever a ticket is issued under in this case the title title 23 10,000 seven which refers to municipal ordinance thank you it's really quick and then I want to keep going okay how much would we be out should somebody get hit now that the there's been a great number of us that have requested assistance what if somebody gets hit well so that's a great question and actually my comment yeah sort of pertains a little bit to that and then actually you have a comment so chief because one of the things that you said was that if we were go to go with 25 that that would basically be I just want to make sure I understood you correctly that would basically be unenforceable because the study did not support that at this time that's correct I mean it has to be we have to it has to be a valid speed limit so if there's about so I'm just going to leave it as long as it's valid we will do everything that we can as we and I think for example of that was very challenge street was many many years ago on Main Street Hill and for you for your perspective a report would need to support that in order for it to be valid it needs to be a legal report that stands up in court as counselor Hill discussed okay um Ashley so I was doing a little digging I remember growing up I think this is one of one of the few meetings that my grandparents actually took me to city council about was speed limits and so I happened to I was curious to see how the town that I grew up in an upside down Vermont have handled this and it's a significantly larger city at this point I think there's probably about 30 8,000 people that live there now however they used the same tools to gather data and in Dover New Hampshire where a posted speed limit was 30 the 85th percentile was 40 miles between 38 and 40 miles per hour in a posted 30 mile per hour zone and in a posted 25 mile per hour zone they the mean speeds were between 26 and 30 so at least in that community you know 30 meant 40 sort of and you know and 25 meant no greater than 30 generally so just putting that out there for some context okay are there any further comments from the council not is there a motion oh um I guess I will close the public hearing assuming that there's no further thoughts okay I move we amend the ordinance to reduce the speed limit on Berlin Street as indicated from 35 to 30 second further discussion one has an amendment to make I think you could think you could make that now I would move that we amend the 30 mile per hours to be limited to 25 for the entire length uh for the entire length okay is there a second I'll second it okay uh for the discussion um Connor than Donna I guess and then Lauren did you have anything I think what I'm at is I'm just uncomfortable voting for something that might not be enforceable you know you can change number on a sign but I think we need to change the culture and then entails resources and the 360 degree look at this as far as traffic calming enforcement um otherwise you're like writing a letter to yourself as far as I'm concerned um I spoke to a lot of residents on north street where it's 25 miles an hour right now and they feel it's like Thunder Road up there um so I again I believe in looking at a citywide approach on this I think the points are very valid that were raised today I would I don't want to mess with residents of Berlin Street you guys are pretty organized we've been forgotten for so long but uh at this point I'm not comfortable uh voting for the 25 I think 30 is a step in the right direction I think we need further discussion on this um in the future so Donna well my question about the motion Ashley is I would like to see us explore the 25 and to move in that direction but I would like to post something right now that I know we can enforce so is is there a way Ashley to modify your amendment um I was just reading this one case that well the statutes have changed somewhat since then but there's a there's a 1994 case from the Vermont Supreme Court out of while it arose in Danville um decrease in summit but not to less than 25 miles per hour um I mean I I appreciate the olive branch I just I to me like the 25 just makes more sense and if 25 proves to be too slow for whatever reason but the commercial traffic coupled with like I drive Berlin Street almost every morning and it always feels a little white knuckled because there are kids and there are pets and people everywhere and I appreciate it though no I know I'm asking the legality of it if we indeed pursue so we could do it legally I think uh there are I mean I'm not the city attorney but I have certainly litigated a similar issue and I guess my sort of takeaway was have the people in the room who were involved in making the decision if there ever comes a time where there is a question that would be litigated not you know in city council chambers that would be at the judicial bureau and then potentially superior court but I think that for all of the reasons that have been articulated we've had a robust public hearing there have been lots of public comments and I and I think that it's important that um that we acknowledge that you know this isn't just about you know putting on the brakes these are these are our neighbors and these are our friends and these are our neighborhood kids and um you know if we want to be the kind of city where people want to be outside and do all of that I feel like part of that is is making the least pedestrian friendly things in our community which are cars you know operate in such a way that that demonstrates significant respect and and deference to pedestrians oh lord so I'm kind of at a point similar to Connor of I am very sympathetic and really appreciative of the comments I live up off of terrace road which is a similar hill and it's 25 and it kind of have a similar feel and 25 seems to work there but I do really struggle with voting tonight on something that we like to me the way I read the information we are given from the lawyers was we need a solid case that's kind of clearly laid out of why we're deviating from the traffic study and although I think we heard a lot of really good points that could possibly be compiled I think we would have to look at what's not in the traffic study that we feel like was missed and and somehow is and we can lay that out so that we could bring that to defend I think it would be hard to say what we heard tonight is somehow you know with data and other things could refute the traffic study so I'm just struggling with how could we stand up and defend that even though I think it could very well be a great idea to do that but I don't feel ready to vote on that this evening would you feel more inclined if with the motion we said change it to 25 and meanwhile work on the statistics to support it sorry Donna do you mean change it to 30 now and work on this no no I mean if tonight to change it to 25 and meanwhile make the commitment to consider to work on the data that's laid out in the ordinance in the statute I'm sorry because it's not illegal until someone takes it to court it's not illegal to someone takes it to court so we could change it to 25 and we could commit ourselves to provide the data and make our argument solid but meanwhile it's been changed um so I was just going to add that um I'm not going to try to sway one way or the other what you do I would say if you're seeking guidance about what to do I would note that when main street was made 25 I think the count the speed study came in at a different recommendation as I recall but this is a long time ago in memory and so you could we could take a look at that and see what the council used as evidence if that was where you want to go if you're comfortable with 30 grade if you're not if you're thinking about 25 we could look at what was done there and I believe there was a challenge and I don't it's still 25 so um we must have won the challenge um Jack responding to Donna I I don't like the idea of for one thing I think 30 is a reasonable speed on on that street but beyond that I don't like the idea of saying we're going to do something that the evidence does not support and then go out and try to find additional evidence to support it I don't think that's a rational way for the for government to proceed with regard to Tom's point that it's I mean I'm sorry with Bill's point that it's true that the speed limit on Main Street is continues to be 25 and I'm sure that the reason for that is that the city council has never changed it once it was set at 25 that doesn't mean that some other entity said we're not enforcing the speed limit at 25 I'm sorry I should have clarified who's actually reduced from 35 to 25 at that time I thought yeah I said it's because it's at 25 yeah right but it wasn't at the time the council made the decision Donna did you have something to say well I feel like it's not going out and creating it I've just heard there's a lot of data that maybe we haven't collected that could be part of the argument so we do have a a motion and a second and an amendment and a second another possibility to is that we could we could table it to do some investigation and you know look at the case of of Main Street see what kind of evidence was used there and see if that would be applicable in this situation I I'm open to any any of these suggestions team but Glenn yes just to state my current position I would much rather lower the speed limit now to 30 and work from there to make physical changes to the road through traffic coming so that the actual speeds on the road drop revisit and lower it to 25 as soon as possible as needed I would I would prefer to take some action tonight and I think that the action indicated for now is 30 just checking does anybody want to table it no okay just checking fair to these people okay well I'd put it out there all right so we do have a motion and a second on the amendment any further discussion on making it 25 Lauren so I mean I'm still inclined I mean I think you know we could vote tonight to go to 30 based on the recommendation but with an understanding that there's going to be a look for could we build the case for 25 and come back in the next couple weeks and do that I really don't feel comfortable voting for something that I don't feel like we've got the foundation for yet even though I think but I think we could build it and look at it but so that's kind of where I am I'm fine moving ahead that way I don't know if you know there's some understanding of don't start printing the signs yet or how the implementation of that goes if if we wanted to set a firm you know we'll take this up in two weeks of the next meeting to see if and if you know we could work with citizens on the on building that case in the interim okay any further comments on the amendment okay all in favor please say I I this is the 25 I'm sorry I'm gonna have to ask you to do that again because I didn't hear everybody this is on the 25 on favor please say I I opposed name oh yeah okay a show of hands so the eyes I think we're two and the nose we're four so the nose have it so the amendment's not pass so now we're back to the original amendment which is to change it to 30 which there was a motion in a second any further discussion on this amendment or not amendment I'm sorry this motion no okay all in favor please say I opposed name and so do you want to hand raise for that as well so the eyes same four same two same two just flipped okay so the motion passes so we're definitely moving it to 30 at least for now I just want to make a note of some other things that I felt like I heard during the discussion which I want to make sure that we are paying attention to one is you know definitely having some kind of a reduced speed ahead sign and welcome to Montpelier as people are entering you know from the Berlin side something your report noted Tom was about adding the possibility of adding a sidewalk on or having a sidewalk on both sides I think that's that's something that I would want to flag for the capital improvement discussion which it's not for a little while yet but I want to make sure that we are paying attention to that and then you know looking at the traffic calming options that we have you know that's putting radars out there or if we need to do some narrowing or redesigning you know with like bulb outs or or what have you I want to also come back to Lauren's suggestion that perhaps with it being 30 right now can we look at the possibility of building a case 425 there's no reason I don't think to delay in that so if we can you know look at what happened with say Main Street or if they're if we can cite something like you know the presence of children or whatever it is if you know that's that's the case then let's let's dig into that so it thoughts thoughts on on that last bit yes just so you know Berlin Street is on the capital improvement plan through the m tick the Transportation Infrastructure Committee I don't remember what year but I can check and rolling that in with other improvements but I'm also asking the month to your transportation infrastructure to take up traffic calming for Berlin Street in August great and and we'll put a posting out and if we can leave me your emails one or two of you then you can have a neighborhood connection if you want to join that conversation cool does there need to make a motion if you want to do the signs or I don't know that we what do you think do we we don't need a motion for that do we or not for MUTCD compliance signs and the speed limit reduction and warning advanced warning the odd thing about the welcome signs is that if it's not in compliance with the MUTCD we can't place it in the right of way so I've got to look into that further I didn't have a chance to do that but it's it's kind of an anomaly in that in the state statute that the part of a traffic calming plan you can do it but a but just to place a welcome to Montpelier sign in the right of way is is not allowed if you look at all of our other welcome to Montpelier signs they're set way back from the highway and the reason is they have to be on somebody's private property if we can get somebody's permission to do that we can do it fairly quickly but okay all right thank you any interest in looking further into exploring 25 I would if there were a motion to that effect so that we also you know had some kind of a deadline for ourselves that would be great thoughts on or if you want to make a motion is this a motion to request a further study for 25 I'm not sure exactly what is that I think I mean my only suggestion being look at you know I'm going by long memory you'd be look at the facts what happened on main street because I don't know what I've got right and wrong at this point but to see what was done and why it was done and what the rationale was and see if it's parallel here or not I don't know so does it make sense to start with a report we could do on what happened with main street and then use that as a catalyst yes actually just a couple of things so I was looking again at 23 vs a section 1007 and actually subsection D would address is this at least in five years time which says special regulations have full force and effective law I'm sorry it is subsection E lack of evidence of a traffic and engineering study will not invalidate a local speed limit ordinance as adopted or amended yada yada yada after five years but then I looked at this case that they reference it's literally an entry order and the facts are really important in that case because the state the prosecutor of the prosecuting officer or attorney was unable to produce anyone from the city who could point to any traffic study any public hearing or any other thing that it happened and it's literally a paragraph entry order which you know basically indicates that the state had when the issue was raised the state then had the burden to bring in someone from the city they brought in the the assistant city clerk of south burlington and she indicated she she didn't have any copies of any traffic control or calming study or anything so the state in essence introduced zero evidence in the case so I think the fact that there is public hearing and lots of testimony taken and a report prepared with compelling information would be sufficient after reading um so oh tom and then uh yeah if what you're suggesting occur study and refer the review I'm a little confused uh changing a lot of signs and beginning active enforcement is okay um about now I'm confused about what what the plan is that the city manager outlined as far as the additional study what the city council is is wanting the city manager to perform I think the city council asked that we provide a report on what happened on main street and what the facts were and what we move forward with changing signs and publishing this is my question meanwhile we've told staff that we're changing it to 30 they're going to do all the signs all the public notices you that's I know i'm just isn't that the problem you haven't passed that motion yet i'm saying that's um tom how long does it take to make a sign purchase them I don't know if we'll make them in house or buy them off the shelf but um I've got to work it into a work plan to do it and I need to check with the city clerk I think this is published um for a period of time if I'm not mistaken so well I think for now um all we're looking at is just some some further information so until there's any different direction um assume the answer is it's 30 okay um and uh so if there's interest in a report on what happened with main street if it's analogous I think it would be helpful to have a motion to that and if anyone wants to do that if not that's fine um possibly having a motion regarding um asking for or can do we need a directing staff we don't need a motion okay okay so we'll won't take long okay great so we'll look into what happened with main street if it's analogous and we'll go from there okay all right well thank you all for coming out and testifying um very grateful for all the organizing that that happened there to to get you all here is wonderful uh and I think we should take a five minute break okay well we're going to come back from our um five minute break and so we are up to the report and budget from uh Montpelier live in the downtown improvement district so welcome Dan thank you Dan Grober Montpelier live director resident of Montpelier I will keep it very brief and you are welcome to ask as many questions as you'd like um as you know the city council essentially contracts with Montpelier live to manage a portion of the downtown improvement funds that equals about $60,000 the city council has set the goals outlined on page one for the downtown improvement district and we utilize those funds to do marketing of Montpelier including printed materials like our new experience Montpelier tourism brochure that I handed around to take photos of Montpelier that we use in marketing to keep our website which is really a tourism oriented um piece um up and running um and to create an attractive downtown with um attractive streetscape public artwork holiday decorations uh and really vibrant events uh so we've done a lot of work in the last year you will see it outlined in this report I'm happy to answer any questions about it um we are tasked each year with presenting a budget to city council for how we intend to spend the funds for your approval on I forgot to number the pages I apologize but on fiscal year which this should actually be 2020 plan but it reads 2019 plan this page our fiscal year is different from your fiscal year so I'm totally lost but your fiscal year 2020 is what we're talking about today so the year that starts on July 1st of this year so we've presented a budget the notable uh items are that this should be the last wayfinding signage uh amount in here and we look forward to having that money freed up uh for other uses and thank you for approving that contract and your consent agenda tonight um there you will see $5,000 for the public art commission which is something that we discussed at the time that the public art commission was formed which is a promise that we made to them which we hope you'll enable us to keep um and uh otherwise there is very little change other than uh slightly reducing the advertising and marketing budget in order to uh accommodate those other two items um so the advertising marketing is slightly down from this year downtown design is fairly similar to this year um and the public art commission is a new addition this brochure will be distributed at state welcome centers and over a hundred other locations using 15 day distributors uh starting July one um so we're really excited about having a piece that's out there for the public to see um that's one of our priorities for the next year um i've already had uh wonderful conversations with um national life who intends to use it for their human resources department to be able to hand to job candidates with Caledonia spirits that plans to have it at their new bar um and they're also bringing it to their new kiosk that they're going to have at the airport in Burlington um so this will be out and about and uh i think really presents a nice space to Montpelier it includes listings for every store and restaurant within the downtown improvement district um and expanded the 25 word description is for Montpelier live members so if you notice the difference there um but this is an example of where Montpelier live really leverages the downtown improvement districts we raised over seven thousand dollars by selling advertisements in the brochure it's about a twenty thousand dollar project so we were able to take downtown improvement districts about half the money from downtown improvement districts and half the money that Montpelier live raised to make this project happen and that's something that we do regularly another example is cooperative advertising our holiday campaign the numbers are somewhere in here we did a eighty four hundred dollar holiday shopping campaign using only just under a thousand dollars in downtown improvement district funds by um getting basically subletting our ad space to businesses so there was a thirty second message for example on the radio upfront that was come to downtown Montpelier for XYZ do your holiday shopping here blah blah blah and then three short ads from local businesses at the end um so i think we use the funds very um effectively and efficiently and i hope you will approve our fiscal year 2020 not nineteen plan um as outlined here jack i enjoyed reading the report i had a question on the first page of the report in your key engagement metrics you indicate an average time of one minute and thirty eight seconds on the web page and i'm just curious is that good is a more is it longer than before is it how is it comparable to other similar web pages what should we drop sure um it's uh good um if you think about the fact that you'll have some people who come to the site and spend three seconds on it and realize that they're not in the right place or um you know so this is an average so there are people who are spending more time than that um it's very similar to the year before um number um and that's a great idea that we should i will ask around and see if other people have data that we can compare it to um i know that the the fact that the website visits are up significantly um is part of the work that we've been doing to make improvements to the website and add really quality content um search engines like google are ranking websites based on like how authoritative is that website on a certain subject so the more like good quality content that we have about Montpelier the higher we rank when people are searching for a Montpelier or when people are searching for where should I visit in Vermont things like that so that's 29 percent increase over a year is very significant i would guess that that duration of stay a lot of people hit that page and it's kind of a landing page and they follow links to some of the local businesses or something like that absolutely and in fact you see that um we actually sometimes rank as high or higher as the actual store or restaurants website because we have that kind of authority within with google other questions done the events have been well this last year and your flowers are up and looking good i mean it's such a simple thing but those flower baskets are just wonderful and i really appreciate your volunteers who water them once they get up there thank you uh so i want to just check in on the amount of the budget in total this year relative to last year i'm not sure that there's a comparison to last year's or if there's i didn't see it i believe it's a five forty one dollar so we went with the number that's okay so it's um it's almost the same okay yeah we don't anticipate any significant differences unless uh the hotel project were to move forward um we may see some difference uh with the um the former gas station property if that's developed um but the hotel would be the most significant increase that we might expect okay done did you actually do the painting on the garage driveway by julio's yes that was great yep so that was one of our projects um in terms of creating an attractive streetscape uh eight hundred ninety one dollars of d i d funds uh paid for the materials uh rob had sick whose local artist who's on our design committee created and donated the design and our uh committee and volunteers actually did the painting uh late at night one night and then did it again after it rained five minutes after we were done with it the first time fair enough i mean you have other questions alcona i was just thinking like bears were cleaning dan is a one-man show here with the help of like a ton of volunteers and everything but the amount of like product then kicks out just by himself i imagine it's kind of lonely sometimes so just uh deserves a lot of credit though okay um actually a little unrelated is anyone else like incredibly warm like it's warm it's summer i'm warm um is any further comments uh otherwise we probably gonna have a motion i'll make a motion that we approve the d i d f y 20 budget as presented so further discussion it comes from the public okay uh all in favor please say aye opposed all right thank you very much thanks thank you for all your great work okay and so now we're on to some zoning fixes welcome i have some copies if we need things otherwise um i can put extra copies off to the side for the public if they want them um so a quick update um i'm sorry have you already made copies that are sitting in that box uh they're i made a couple copies of each you you you you have copies but i didn't know okay okay i'm telling you different than what we know it's not anything different but if somebody needed a hard copy i do have um so you received a slightly revised uh strike out version last Friday um in this new draft just made some minor changes to the non-conforming rules you may remember that the um garage pellets used uh a provision of the non-conforming as a basis for part of their appeal so we wanted our attorney to look at what our regulations say to see if there are tweaks we can make to make it clear um we believe the old version was clear but if people you know are going to make a claim that it's not clear then we should make some edits to clarify so uh they did make a couple of edits not too substantial but um that was why you got a revised section it's just chapter 120 that was the only thing that changed um earlier you should have received a draft strikeout copy um the punch list of the zoning changes in the matrix which differences out would look like that um two maps and two memos from the planning commission so uh that's kind of the complete package um and at this point reviewing the changes um I just need we just need to figure out what we want to do for a process um as I mentioned last time there are three areas of changes that um most of the changes are small but there are three areas that have some policy implications um the the stream buffers for unchannelized portions in the urban center the buildable area requirement and um the steep slopes um we're the three areas that would have something and so you know I don't know how you would like to review it we can start at part one and work our way through with whatever questions we could review these three specific areas or we could just open up for questions and comments it's up to you the process as to how you'd like to go through um I think we should probably start with uh questions and then um just back up to clarify here so I think it'll become clear um you know through the questions whether or not we're in a place where we're ready to adopt these or if we need more time I mean because the the timing of adopting them is is pretty critical right uh well the timing of these is less critical but it's it's kind of funky what we're having right now aren't technically hearings they're just meetings because under state law as soon as we warn the hearing the drafts go into effect and so we don't want to have a long period of time where we're in hearings or else it really starts to make a mess of permits so usually what we have is a bunch of meetings we decide pretty much on what we think we're going to adopt and then we have the two hearings we try to put them close together so that way we can get through the hearing process without making a big mess of permits so we could potentially be setting our first hearing date at the end of this meeting if you felt comfortable with what's in the draft yes okay okay so um questions that folks or comments that folks have on on the amendments the strikeouts made sense and I could read it made sense I just didn't have something right next to it to compare so it looks good to me I tried to send you a strikeout so you could look at them pretty close it's amazing how much you struck out it's good yeah there was a lot of some of them were were small as you would see little things like changing the word lot to to parcel we tried to you know just little things like that because of just a technical thing sometimes we'd use lots sometimes we'd use parcel it's better to be consistent always you're going to talk about the same thing always use the same word and so we made a number of changes like that where we would be very we just did global search replace and made it all consistent um sandy did you want to make a comment oh that could be now if you would like if you're if you're ready I don't want to put you on the spot okay I'm ready okay go for it um I don't believe you're making comments to section three one zero three technically we could make comments on any section okay that's why I would like to speak tonight my name is sandy bits to and I'd like to preface my comments if I may that I will try to keep to two minutes you and I would appreciate not being interrupted about that subject while I'm speaking okay I do my best um I'm speaking about this section which is on community facilities because I think that this part of the ordinance probably started from a clear intention years ago and has become less clear as other things have changed so specifically the the statutes and ordinances I'm familiar with are the the reason why they're in place is to let municipalities in the state bypass questions of use typically so that if they need to put a certain use in a certain place it can happen without a lot of public review about why a library or a sewage treatment plant or something needs to be where it is um I'm hoping that you all have this again to save my time about what the wording is do you want me to read it quickly oh you all have it good um so the way it is worded right now is this is may only be regulated with respect to certain items that are mostly about the physical appearance of the building um it's interesting that many things were missed in that that clause or section and though some of those things are paving surfaces site improvements like furniture driveways configurations parking spaces interior roads alternative transportation measures like sidewalks traffic impact steep slopes riverfronts um and one thing that was mentioned tonight is there does not seem to be any uh consideration of subdivisions and lock configurations although that may be in a separate section because that's not really the site criteria so um I want to point out that one of the major changes is that the state of Vermont is moving away from review of projects uh through the act 250 process in downtown areas so really what is left is review of any project at the city level for with only a very minor review of act 250 so most of these things cannot be considered by act 250 my feeling strongly is that any project including or especially a municipal project needs to be reviewed by as many eyes as possible to make it as good as it can possibly be safe as it can be um kind of well thought out as it can be and I would hate to avoid the chance to to review these things so my suggestion is to actually remove a lot of wording from this um so land development associated with the community facility requires approval under these regulations and then strike everything up until only to the extent that the regulations do not have the effect on of interfering with the intended functional use so in other words it would take out all those details in between I hope that makes sense I'm glad to answer any questions about that can you say that again let so striking which portion I'll read the way I would suggest it to be land development associated with a community facility requires approval under these regulations only to the extent that the regulations do not have an effect of interfering with the intended functional use I think taking out all of those specifics in the middle actually would make it clearer and more encompassing okay okay thank you um thoughts on that uh yes like um okay and then so the okay yeah so the the primary basis for why that is in there is that is actually um under state law that those are the the limitations that the state had that zoning is limited by state law we have to have certain requirements in the zoning including a fact that community facilities can only be regulated with respect to these very specific requirements um we could and what typically happens within our own applications locally is that we usually voluntarily go through the process despite the fact that we don't have to so locally we do um we usually recognize in our reports that we do have the exemption but we're opting to go through the rules um and so that's where this basis comes from and it certainly still applies to all of these other ones um institutions owned by the city or state schools and education facilities they all also have these same things um this gets typically used uh VCA the VCFA um as a college is also exempt and we can only regulate them with respect to that uh any church that comes in with a proposal we have to honor the limitations under state law um and you you see the rest of the list there so it's it's pretty typical in many cases um or I wouldn't say many there's in every community they try to work with their partners who have exemptions um I remember talking with Burlington and you know one of the colleges always claims the exemption they'll come in get their permits and walk out without the reviews because they're exempt from a lot of the review whereas another institution in Burlington always voluntarily goes through the entire process because they feel part of being part of the community so that's that's where the basis comes from and that's why it's in there so uh with all of these um details that I don't hear I mean is this just reflecting um what is already required by the state like and basically is I'm wondering is is that somehow redundant with um state it is redundant with state law um we try to put it in the regulations just because it becomes it becomes clear for applicants and for reviewers if they don't also have to have a set of statutes next to them to I mean we if we didn't have it in here it would still be in effect because it's under state law that says these are the only things we're allowed to regulate I mean one possibility it seems to me is that we could just say with uh you know regulated as per state statutes was that I yes we certainly we certainly could um I've I've worked with communities who would just go and say that it has to has to just be that um as I said I usually like to put it in there because at some point people will want to know what that says and if they're in a me and if they're in a drb hearing and they don't have a set of the statutes then it it would kind of be like boy I'd love to know whether we can or can't can can we regulate parking or not yeah it's like well we could just flip it open and look and read the list and see whether it's one of the things on the list uh Don and then Sandy did you have something to follow a question Mike sometimes we do refer to state statute because we know it can be changed so if this is not a referral to a specific statute but listing it does that mean that has to be changed when the state changes limitation would depend how it changed well I just wonder because other places you have referred you've preferred to refer to the state statute and here you've included it I'm just trying to understand is it more frequently used it's more frequently used I mean we certainly could go through let's say in this case we could put at the start of 3103a we could say per 24 vsa 44131a that might be right might be wrong somewhere in there um per per that statute comma land development associated with and and then if people want to know what where that came from they could refer back if there's a change in state law it would be a fairly easy job for us to find it because we would just search by that thing I prefer to be there but I would prefer it in other places that we took it out so that's why I'm asking what's the difference I prefer to put it to put them in yeah I'm with you but it's so much more friendly a number yeah something to follow up yeah I mean I'm quite familiar with that statute and I actually think it would be clearer not to give examples of things that may change over time or may actually be confusing I think it would be better to refer to the statute and and then refer to the purpose of it which is what you do at the end of that section or clause or whatever you want to call it um I'll just say I I tend to agree I think if we can be not redundant um with state statute and let it refer to the the statute that's I think preferable in my mind but I think also having it there it's sort of what what you were saying um Mike about the possibility of at the beginnings you know referencing the state statute and then if it's you know I'm having it right there it could be I could see it as convenient so people don't have to look it up but then you know if it does change that could be probably we might want to get legal advice on this because this section of the statute we're currently in active litigation on okay and it's pertains to the parking garage I believe I heard Mike say that we weren't required to go through zoning but we chose to anyway and it happens with a number of projects that we go through it's not just that one it routinely comes up where there'll be a project that the city is working on or so so whether we should amend it at this time yeah that's that's that makes sense um fair enough uh so let's stylistically I could do it whichever way you want I could certainly just go through and have just a section that says per section 4413 or well is is this something we can flag and then which means probably maybe we're not ready to set a hearing date necessarily but yeah I mean we could I mean there could if that were the only issue that were there I think that's something that could be resolved without making I don't think it'd be a substantive change if it's not going to conflict in the middle of the new voted state law and condensed it um all right other comments uh don't this is a an aside which I already talked to Mike about I saw an article in the New York Times about cities questioning the American ideal house with a yard and I know when we went through zoning we were trying to get through some of the biases in zoning that's if you couldn't build a comp a duplex here in department house here and we've come a long ways and it seems like the rest of the country is now following us that single home actually is now the zoning is being changed so they can't exclude non-single home units in neighborhoods it's a very interesting article I know that some of you told me when I forwarded New York Times you couldn't always open it but it's very lengthy but I'll forward it and those of you who can't open it let me know maybe I can try to print it out I just did a few pages here but but right now the zoning is such that in 75 percent of the residential lane in America it's illegal to build anything other than a detached single family home that's how far a field was our bias to have a single home and a yard so I just want to note that that we've done some improvements I think the way you worded it was four units we now allow yeah and all in all of Montpelier you can have a single family home or a duplex as a permitted use and you can have up to a four unit building assuming you have the density for it four unit building as a conditional use in any any district in the city so we've we allow quite a lot in multifamily in most of the districts that's important uh... Jack I just wanted to mention and uh... I don't know we might want to send this to the whole council before we take this up but Connor and I have met with and corresponded with the constituent who has some concerns about the steep slopes designation and rules and so for that I don't know if we I'm not proposing to go into a great detail discussion about it now but I would suggest that that correspondence be forwarded to the entire council so that uh... when we take this up at a public hearing people know what we're talking about Donna is that different than we got previously about steep slopes yeah it's pretty much the same I don't know that there are big differences but but there's another round of correspondence so yep yep any further thoughts uh... Lauren um just on the steep slopes point I mean I'm just kind of curious the thinking around so adding in the line in section 30 07 so now we're saying that we want to allow appropriate development on our near steep slopes and to limit disturbing so new language it seems like we're encouraging steep slope development as long as it's well designed which seems not what the direction I would want to be going knowing especially with climate change and more frequent and extreme rain events predicted and so on developing steep slopes like I know we live in a steep town and we have to allow for that um and I think that the rest of it does allow for it with the language seems fine but putting that in our purpose just kind of concerns me that seems to encourage it in a way that it's not currently encouraged which number are you actually read our section 307 steep slopes and a the purpose so we're adding language to that we intend previously and maybe that may I don't know if something was deleted that's not reflected here but um it's intended it was intended to limit disturbing or clearing steep slopes to protect public safety that are now saying that the way I read it is that we we want to allow appropriate development as long as it's designed well so it kind of seems proactively encouraging development on steep slopes as long as it's well designed I imagine your constituent was hopeful that that's exactly the direction the city was going but um what I remember from that discussion was there was some land that was totally not allowed any development because way over here was a steep slope it was just so unrealistic uh it wasn't so much that intention but it was to rebalance it so maybe the wording needs to be changed there yeah I mean the way I would read the rest of it is you would still be able to develop that but just putting that in our purpose seems to predispose you towards supporting steep slopes whether or not it's the only place on the parcel you could develop if that's how we like define the purpose of Jack would you feel better about it if this if the purpose section said something like intended to regulate development on or near steep slopes so as to limit disturbing or clearing steep slopes for development which just it doesn't substantively change it but it changes what uh might change what the emphasis is possibly I mean I I think striking that new language and just saying that the sections intended to to limit does not prohibit it just limits and then you've got this process you can go through if you make the case and have your hearing and have your engineering to show that you can do it safely and meet your our criteria of protecting public safety and minimizing erosion and so on then you should still be able to do those developments but it just it's just a change of emphasis and I don't know Mike if you no I mean I can I can see why you would make that recommendation it probably could work without the new addition I mean the section still is intending to limit disturbing or clearing steep slopes for development not it doesn't say prohibit disturbing or clearing but I think jacks regulate you know regulating development and or you know I think either one can work it's you know it really is the purpose statement what is it we're trying to accomplish do I take it back and think about it um yeah just that does that wording work for you to regulate and I forget what else yeah that language works for me too yeah okay if the council thinks it works just as well to strike it I think I don't I don't think it loses anything to strike it either so oh to just strike to strike then the new stuff but got you um other thoughts go ahead glenn splitting it even still further what if we struck the new language and change the word limit to regulate so we say this section is intended to regulate the disturbance or clearing of steep slopes for development in order to that feels like it's to me that feels like it is fairly balanced it's not saying we're limiting it it's just saying we're regulating it and it doesn't feel encouraging to me we want to limit steep slope I hear that explicitly we want to allow it where it needs to happen and the example we were given seemed like a reasonable kind of example where prohibiting it is not practical in a town like Montpelier but um but I think we I personally think we want to be limiting steep slope to steep slope development where practical I'm fine with I'm fine with that um Connor so if we struck the new language it would have no practical impact on the rest of it would make me sleep better than we do not cite the purpose statement when we are doing the regulation the purpose is to so we're gonna so we're gonna strike it is that where we've landed generally speaking team just we're striking the new language okay any other comments um uh go ahead learn I just had a question in the back to section 10 to the very beginning the purpose of our so we've got this great sorry can you say the section again section 10 0 2 so right at the beginning like the first page of text okay yep um we've got the purpose and we mentioned that we want to promote development that protects and conserves natural agricultural scenic and historic resources and other goals I'm just wondering we have this great net zero goal to and some development I was wondering about thinking about putting that explicitly into our the purpose of how we were wanting to do development we might have other city goals that could similarly be added so that might open a whole can of worms but just wondering about that concept I would say we do a limited amount of net zero energy work through the zoning there's a little bit that talks about where buildings are cited and how they're oriented a little bit with shading of potential solar facilities and those types of things but it's a lot of our net zero goals would probably be more in our building codes and and other regulations rather than I mean certainly you could put a statement in here to that effect again it's a purpose statement but there it's not a generally a set of rules that are used to really advance that goal I would think that if we're if we wanted to add internet zero to it I I would want to have either some further things in this document that we were also planning on adding or my guess is that it would I would love to I would love to have that conversation but I think that might take some time I've also been advised that zoning is a very blunt tool to try to get anything done with in terms of net zero so I would want to I mean fair right like I'm I'm obviously like into that but I think I would want to have some more conversation about how that applies and if we were going to go down that road like let's really take some time yeah I would think you know the fundamental underpinning of zoning is land use and so if you're talking about net zero would be more encouraging or cluster development more you know walkable type things closer to downtown those kinds of things would be the way through land use you'd encourage it then building codes would be about the materials and those sorts of you know or you know not creating disincentives to have solar panels or whatever types of things you know does that sound right I mean yeah I mean that's what how I was thinking the intersection but I think that would be more through how the zone the districts are yeah but yes we can let's let's ponder further yeah process and timeline let's let's make a note to do that though great thanks the only comment I wanted to make was just that I was glad that we have required for any building that happens on steep slopes that we were requiring a plan by a professional engineer with pretty clear criteria for what that plan needs to include that seems reasonable to me other thoughts otherwise we're gonna probably move on okay pending this question about community facilities can we set a hearing date when when makes the most sense for for you do you want to do it in the next actually we do have a list of upcoming agenda items I think we had planned I think I had assumed that we would have one more public meeting so I think I had in my head thought end of august first week of set the first time in september what is the approximate calendar um end of august would be um 10 23 oh that's october I can't read this right okay sorry 8 8 28 would be the second 8 28 and then there was a 9 and then september 11 september 11 so that's good they're close together fairly close so because I think my concern was I think there was a big jump between the july and the august right yeah that makes sense cool and I need 30 days to more in the many ways so I will it gives me a little window of time to get that out and did you want to do another um sort of in more informal meeting about um you know regarding the zoning before then um certainly it looks like it might be on for um 8 14 issue that comes with 8 14 is that um we couldn't make any changes because the hearing was warned for the 28 oh I see so that's the trick if we if we had one did but we are hoping to have one more of these meetings or or or no we could I was figuring the the meeting in july unless that's a what do you think team I'm happy with not doing it we uh it was noticed today there's not been a lot of uh public input or interest we're going to have two public hearings I would just set the public hearings for august 28th and september 11 you said there's an august 14th meeting as well yes did you want to do the 14th and the 28th that's two weeks as well I thought there was a missing last july one that's missing either way we're going to have good council attendance or people going on vacation in august I'll be here do you need a motion to yes I think we do that we said that so I well well you know that's a good point I mean we haven't had a huge amount of public involvement but nonetheless I think we'd have bigger public involvement in august 28th and september 11 that we would in the 14th and the 28th so if we wanted to have it when more people are around and at least provide that opportunity yeah it would probably be better I don't want to try to push it off but zoning and people usually want to weigh in no people are gone in august okay so we wanted a motion to set the public hearing on the zoning oh yeah on zoning august 28th in september 11th second for the discussion um all in favor please say aye aye opposed okay so we will have formal hearings then if anybody has any questions between now and then you're more than welcome to shoot them my way and I will answer and clarify and and Jack Connor are going to send us the the query that you got from one of your constituents and I'll work with bill to get the whatever the thing is on community facilities to see what's what David Ru would recommend and get you something to think about okay I agree with you it's not going to be a substantive change I just I'm just nervous about changing it at all while we're litigating okay all right so we are moving on to um thank you by the way all right so we're moving on to the first reading of chapter five which is pertaining to the fire department so I believe this is a is this public hearing yes it is public hearing so I'm going to officially open the public hearing so comments or questions unless Bob there's something you would like to no I don't any questions most of us was cleaning up language and and you know we removed that large section on fire districts the inner district and outer district that's you know it doesn't pertain anymore most of the changes also we are now reflective in our building code so that's where a lot of it has gone to so there were just and if you want I can just today going over it we found just a couple of the things on page two five point six reporter a fire hydrant use and it should be to the water department not the water commissioner we don't just the wording change there and then in the next one five point seven um talks about the fire alarm telegraph damaging it and that was has been removed from service so yeah that that's this has been removed from service and I missed that the first time through but I found it today what's what are you guys been typing oh yeah so no Morse code requirement for no more yeah there was a long time yeah how long ago was that removed well the box alarm system right uh which was is part of that system was just I was here yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so then the last time was on council so yeah yeah yeah it hasn't been that long but it was certainly outdated and it was time for it to go so um I have a couple of questions about this so for example section five dash eleven and five dash twelve one is about street fires without a permit or leaf burning without a permit I just want to clarify we're not it's burning leaves is still not okay but then it's just it's moved where yeah we moved it all into 513 okay to the outdoor burning section and that was age three yeah yeah so we so we cleaned that language up and it hasn't been that long ago when and where we allow a person to have a campfire without getting a fire permit so if you have a regular ring or something you want to have a campfire you don't have to get a permit from the fire department anymore okay so it's just all collapsed into that yes it's not otherwise called out elsewhere right you know eliminated the burning in the streets and things yeah fires in the street okay well great any other questions about this section Lauren sorry just on section five five the bottom of page one so just trying to read the strike out so like this starting in the second line except for the purpose of having the same repaired or in response to a mutual aid compact request for assistance or town or city just seems like yes before neighbor like it needs the yeah okay you're right yeah assistance or in a neighboring town or city is that what I was supposed to read okay so just yeah yeah we'll fix that yeah okay uh actually um on section five four oh three in the penalty i knew one of the things that we talked about a few times was incorporating sort of justice so talking about penalties a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars and the loss of privilege for future permits may also be imposed you know I would also you know put in there potentially some some community justice center component if there's an issue that arises you know in neighborhood or with a neighbor about an unauthorized burn or something like that oh you're talking about the fireworks section um five four uh well I guess it is there but yeah it is under the fireworks chapter five it's on the fireworks okay I was missing five four three the story oh yeah in fireworks yes down at the bottom yeah that's yeah that make yeah right seems reasonable yeah trying to do that with all of our yes okay great any other comments okay any comments from the public okay all right so we're gonna close the public hearing on that and uh we uh I think we do we need to second reading would be the next meeting do we do a motion for that we probably do yep I move that we hold the second public hearing for this on uh July 10th is there a second second for the discussion all in favor please say I pose okay great and then when we do the building code section what it's six chapter six I can you'll you'll see where a lot of the discos it's okay yeah they kind of go together yeah okay great super thank you uh all right so that is the end of our regular business um great so ending a little before 10 here it's awesome uh maybe you have to be told yeah anything that happens still um who would like to start pick on Lauren if you okay go ahead Lauren um so just a couple things I wanted to let let people know that one of the sections of the ordinances has gotten slowed down because of me so I'm looking into some language around toxic chemical discharges to our water supply so just want to let people know I'm Jamie's been helping and I'm doing some research on how we can clarify and especially in light of like the Bennington contamination with toxic chemicals of drinking water and so on ensuring that we're having good ordinances that make sense for safe drinking water and surface water and wanted to know and Anne was there as well but there is a group that has started convening looking at the energy efficiency ordinance so there's a process going on there so work is going to be going on and the start of public process and other things looking for for feedback on some of the ideas and looking at what's been done in other part of the country and so on so look out for that but just wanted to provide that update thanks go ahead Jack in light of the discussion tonight about safe traffic at the transportation infrastructure committee next next week one of the items on the agenda is a review of the draft traffic calming policy and so people members of the public might want to come or just let you know this this is coming up the notice of hearing of meeting that we got says july 3rd actually july 2nd it's the first tuesday of the month actually i'm going to propose that we cancel that meeting because the holiday loves every part of the okay I want to take a quick opportunity to uh thanks to allen for her time with the city well you're gonna have more chance than that I'm sure I will but but first first opportunity since it was in the paper today I look forward to the last little while of working with you and yeah sorry to see that you're on your way but but it's been great I also want to uh go back briefly to something that we passed as an addendum in the consent agenda that I'm really looking forward to pancakes for the people gentleman named Eli Mutino it looks like is going to serve free pancakes in front of city hall once a week for four consecutive weeks early in the morning from seven to ten and I don't see a day of the week there yet once a week I'm I would like to suggest to Mr. Mutino that he pick Thursday so I can walk across the street and have one or two I am a pancake expert and I I would like to offer my critical attention to to his great initiative and I will be at baggitos tomorrow morning uh 8 30 to 9 30 echoing glenn susan absolute legend we got a barn burner for party we'll get that going I uh despite saying very hurtful things sometimes I I did want to appreciate Mr. Whitaker's uh advocacy for the homeless population in town and uh you know I actually witnessed a couple incidents last night that made me think um I don't feel like I have a very good understanding of what the state's role is the designated agencies and our own city staff as far as dealing with this population um I see our police force um really acting as like mental health officers sometimes and I saw some of our EMS like actually checking vitals I just don't great work to help people uh but it still feels like you know maybe not enough has happened and and I don't know if it's uh maybe a matter of sitting down with the group who's working on this we're going to report from some of the agencies and everybody who works with this population um I just feel a little of the dark and I feel like I'd uh maybe we'd all be better served uh having that on the agenda upcoming meeting so so are you thinking like uh um sort of maybe a report is the wrong word but just hearing from groups that are um involved yeah yeah sure yeah no I just feel a bit clueless myself so I'd like to just know more about the system overall um I'm just looking at the agenda um any particular do we have any do we have any committee now that works like housing on the edge of that is anybody yeah have some task force so maybe we could start there with a conversation and we might end up with another little subgroup but at least we could start with somebody that has some information well there there was a group too that um that recently glenn and I were there about uh coordinating all the the groups that offer meals over the course of the day or the week really um and other service providers were also there um so you know the shelter from in berry uh so you may have a list yeah yeah so and and they are somewhat organized and they're they're looking to coordinate with each other more um and so I mean as as I was there I also offered to say like how how can the city um help and at the time the the most um that made sense for us was to help provide a list of resources and maybe that's where we start you know maybe that's what we do is just get everybody up to speed on the resources that exist um and then part of my hope with this group is that and I think part of the intention of this group was to help identify gaps uh and you know it may be appropriate for the city to step in but it may be some other group um where that's appropriate to step in so um I can either work with bill or jamie or whoever in terms of scheduling and maybe it's with the housing task force but um you know with some of the other leaders of that of that group i'm getting them here I think could be good does that does that sound reasonable um okay yeah thanks thanks very much for yeah so do you want to um I mean maybe it makes sense to make some contacts and see when those folks are available um you know aim for sooner if we can but um otherwise see what their schedules are like and go from there right okay super thank you yeah and along those same lines I think all of you have been contacted by is it the migrant justice group to talk about our fair and impartial policing policy that the state has and how we as a city council could maybe improve that policy so I hope you all make that appointment it was very informative and I hope that when we come back we can talk about it as a group because I think there's some action steps beyond just maybe improving our statement but we can do things um evan from the restorative justice group has been facilitating the parks commission with a strategic planning we had our second meeting this week and she's committed herself to some more meetings in the fall but a lot of progress has been made with the commissioners looking at their role and the staff role and a clear much more clear mission and value statements it was it's been really good and so you'll see some printed stuff from that but the interaction has been really good especially as we're making this transition from Jeff leaving and going into new staff the m tick is is meeting this July 2nd which is really hard on the holiday so I'm encouraging them to think about postponing the calming traffic calming study discussion until august but we will be keeping you posted on that and on where promen street sidewalk is because it is in the capital improvement plan and the other statement that Ashley knows is that the central Vermont public safety authority has canceled its meetings until august we're waiting for our communication committee to come back from their rfp out for sima casting radios so there's some major happenings within the public service authority with the staff change and also with the chairmanship so it's a little rough period right now but keep you posted Jack to I think after me you're mentioning the community justice center just reminded me that I should have brought up I know that they are looking for more volunteers both for the circles of support and accountability and for the restorative justice panel so I've been on a COSA circle for several months now and it's really rewarding and very very difficult and we need people to to step up for that so I encourage anyone who's interested to get in touch with Yvonne downstairs at the restorative would you explain what those initials are I've said I know center for I'm sorry circle of support and accountability is the COSA and the restorative justice panel is the other thing that they're looking for volunteers for both really valuable I realized I neglected to mention something which I think is important people may know Bill Newhall who is one of the founders of another way and he was one a very important figure in in the movement to provide advocacy and support for people particularly people with the psychiatric diagnosis and Bill died on June 13th and there will be a memorial in his honor at the Unitarian Church on July 8th from approximately three to five p.m. Bill had a tremendous impact on the community and he should be his passing should be noted all right so I have a few things here so one is Caledonia Spears is opening on Saturday public very exciting and July 3rd obviously it's coming right up very excited we are going to put in a plug you all are walking in the parade right yes yes I'm not going to carry a sign though okay I did check in with Jamie about a banner so I don't know where we're at with that but hopefully I do not plan on wearing a top hat at this point I could I don't think I will though but you're all hopefully you're all going to be there great okay just checking yeah yeah maybe not do you all want to go or something? oh my goodness that'd be so fun I don't know do you want to we can we can coordinate that offline um okay so you know that's next week oh gosh it is next I don't want to think about it right now okay uh also I just want to check with Sue I was going to talk about the the date for the public meeting about uh home energy labeling that's ready to go right okay so we did set a date to have um the first public conversation uh about the possibility of having ordinance regarding home energy labels at the time of listing for sale for buildings and so that date if I am not mistaken is August 20th which is a Tuesday at 6 p.m. and I believe we're planning on having that meeting here so there'll be some background as to the work that's been done not just statewide but across the country and sort of where we're at in the process and what that could look like for us and then hopefully get some input from anybody who's available so I'd love to have you all there if I have any indication that you know that we may have a quorum there I just want to make sure that we warn it properly I mean I suppose we might as well um what time on the 20th? 6 o'clock so in any case I hope you all can come to that uh we I do anticipate that there may be a few public meetings and then we'll end up with a some ordinance language that gets recommended to this group um and we should probably um have a couple of meetings on that just in terms of uh getting people you know briefed on on background and then what the ordinance does um so that's one thing and then the other thing I just wanted to give a quick update from the energy committee at our last meeting we had a really great presentation from the energy action network they have updated their website to have highly specific energy information about every municipality in Vermont and so you could look up things like how much each municipality uses in terms of electricity or how many buildings have been weatherized or how many advanced wood heating systems they have or how many heat pumps they have and you can track it over time as well so what's the trend in terms of like how fast the uptake is in these technologies and you can also see a heat map and a ranking so like where there are a lot of for example electric vehicles and then where are any particular municipality ranks per capita in terms of any technology so there's a lot of information there as an energy nerd I was thrilled and actually ended up writing my city page highlighting some of that data it turns out that we are excellent at weatherization and electric vehicles but we can always but we're but we haven't actually met well actually it also solar generation as well but we have not yet met our the equivalent of a Montpelier scale Paris climate goal but we're on our way and that is encouraging so I would I've just looked for that I suppose in the bridge and then check out that website it's great that is it for me John thanks just a couple things we are working on dates which we should be able to hopefully even announce in Friday's packet for both the transportation forum that we talked about we've talked to some of the participants I agree about transit is interested in participating all earth trains rail whatever is interested in participating VTRAINs we think will be in so we're trying to get get a date for that the council I know wanted it as a separate not on a council name and likewise we're finalizing the process for the very mean to roll out and I think there are a couple dates set for that actually Sue is that ready for very mean I don't have those we want to come can you tell us oh yeah the very main public meetings I might hang on see if I have one I feel like I communicate a little bit no we do have them somewhere yes July 25th at the senior center and August 1st at the library and what times I don't know what time I barely knew the date but those are the dates anyway we'll get the times with the idea that we'd come for the council to process all that on August 14th okay and one of those is we think it's here or no at the senior center and then the library because the two major changes proposed are the berry street quarter and then the school street or by the library so the thought was to have those in the areas where where they might fall great I spoke to you I think last meeting about this build grant which is a grant to look at rail and we have we've been in contact with all our rail and and city of berry and it looks like the regional planning commission is going to take the lead so it doesn't have to come through the city but they're going to take the lead for the grant application for and include both communities so that's looking good and we did we have done some work we're going to we expect to have a final report and recommendation about child care at meetings well it is great and it's not I mean we think we'll be able to do something but what basically we've been advised by anybody we've talked to not to do it for a lot of good reasons we don't have a real good space here we don't know the age range and the number of people that would be coming our insurers were very concerned about that we have to you know we'd have to look at vaccinations we'd have to look at a lot of a lot of factors you know do we have a license stake here do we hire someone so what we're looking at and I wanted to run this up the flagpole before we went too far is to take the money that we had and maybe Yvonne came up with really good suggestions this maybe offer a $20 dollar voucher if you took if you did $100 a meeting technically we have 24 meetings two per month so I mean $2,400 we put $2,000 in the budget and so if we had five $20 vouchers available on a given night and you know obviously we had some big two hour meeting we might consider looking at that but and people would have to sign a bit in advance and obviously make some representation that you know they didn't have a partner at home that could have watched that you know I mean it's gonna be some sort of honor system there and then just let people then they could hire their own child care in their own home somebody their child kid knows and we don't have the liability of doing that so we're thinking through all the safeguards and how that might look but we think that might be just the best way to accomplish the goal of allowing somebody to overcome a hurdle of attending a meeting without us having to take on a whole new program so that's okay we'll continue with that that's okay with me I also want to recognize that that is a fabulously creative solution to something that could have easily just been like no we can't do that so thank you that's it eh that's it for me okay so without objection we are going to adjourn the meeting at nine forty eight